On Tuesday, the Dynamic Strategy Institute (EPIC) at the University of Chicago released its annual Atmosphere Quality Life Index (AQLI). According to the data, the most polluted region in the world is South Asia. Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan are among the worst hit, with nearly a quarter of the world’s population living there.
Between 2013 and 2021, the purification of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in South Asia increased by 9.7%, resulting in an additional six months of life expectancy for the region as a whole. Four of the worst-hit countries (Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan) have added up to five years.
PM2.5 from the industry, motor vehicle emissions, fire alarms and other movements, with carcinogenic risk. According to the World Health Organization, 36 percent of lung cancers, 34 percent of strokes and 27 percent of heart attacks are not linked to these emissions.
A new statement from the University of Chicago exaggerates that PM2.5 air purification is the greatest external threat to human health, greater than tobacco’s beneficial persecution of human life expectancy. If PM2.5 concentrations were limited to the indicative level of 5 micrograms per cubic meter, as proposed by the WHO, global life expectancy would be extended by 2.3 years.
In Bangladesh, where the average PM2.5 level was 74 micrograms per cubic meter, residents lived 6.8 years longer, compared with 3.6 months in the United States.
From 2013 to 2021, about 59% of the global increase in air purification will come from India. The most polluted city was New Delhi, India, where the average annual PM2.5 concentration was 126.5 micrograms per cubic meter higher, extending the life expectancy of residents there by more than 10 years.
Rapid industrialization and population growth are the main reasons for the decline in the quality of atmosphere in South Asia, and the lack of basic measures and capital to handle achievements is also an important reason. Overall, South Asia is now less than 50% cleaner than it was at the beginning of the century.
Chen pointed out that the pace of increase that China has adopted since 2014 has achieved significant results. Between 2013 and 2021, China’s average purification increased by 42.3%. If these consequences continue, it is estimated that the average life expectancy of Chinese residents will be extended by 2.2 years.
However, from around the world, few places can reach the extent of the WHO structure indication. EPIC reported that 98.4% of Europe still does not reach the WHO level of 5 micrograms per cubic meter. According to a recent study by the World Health Organization, the degree of atmosphere purification in almost all places in the world is higher than this safe value, and at least 9 out of every 10 people in the world live in places with low atmosphere quality.
The rich West faces a different kind of improvement. Overall, the quality of atmosphere in Europe and North America has lost ground over the past few decades, but increasing wildfires have led to a surge in decontamination. For example, during California’s historic wildfire season in 2021, the PM2.5 concentration in Plumas County exceeded the WHO structural indicator by more than five times.
Currently, the Canadian wildfires in North America have been burning for nearly two months without destruction. Across the Atlantic, Europe’s deadliest wildfire of the summer has been raging in Greece for 10 days, and European Union countries are rushing to help. These wildfires have nothing to do with falling temperatures and more frequent droughts that are characterized by weather variability.
With regard to air purification, the situation within Europe also varies from region to region. Due to the clean atmosphere, the life expectancy of Eastern European residents is 7.2 months shorter than that of Western European residents. Bosnia and Herzegovina remains the most polluted country in Europe, with life expectancy extending by 1.8 years.
Overall, Asia and Africa are the most affected regions, with 92.7% of the world’s total years of life gained due to air purification. In contrast, only 35.6% and 4.9% of countries in these two regions, respectively, have established climate quality standards. Due to the purification of the atmosphere, the death rate of the two continents is about 100 times that of Europe and North America.
In African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon, cleaning up the atmosphere extends life expectancy more than AIDS, malaria and other health threats, Chen said. These African countries are among the top 10 cleanest in the world.
EPIC alleges that the capital allocation that exaggerates the performance of the management on a global scale is unfair, and the regions where the atmosphere is purified the most are seriously separated from the regions where the capital is distributed. The organization said in a press release that the continent as a whole had received less than $300,000 in domestic philanthropic capital for climate cleanup. Excluding China and India, only $1.4 million went to Asia. Meanwhile, Europe, the United States and Canada received $34 million.
Cleaning up the atmosphere also has a serious effect on the global economy. According to a 2020 report by the Green War Structural Dynamics and Clean Atmosphere Research Center, the economic loss caused by air cleaning-related deaths was about $2.9 trillion in 2018, accounting for about 3.3 percent of global GDP.
